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Galveston weather concerns

NouCruzer

By NouCruzer,
in Royal Caribbean International

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pspercy

pspercy

Posted
Posted

Latest Update:

 

 

 

Port of Galveston

 

 

August 26, 2017 10:31 AM

PARKING UPDATE: The Port of Galveston Parking Lots are NOT flooded. However, access roads to the parking lots are flooded thus it is not possible to retrieve vehicles from the lots at this time. For additional information please call 409-766-6169.

 

http://portofgalveston.com/AlertCenter.aspx?AID=INFORMATION-REGARDING-CRUISES-AND-PARKIN-23

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foxgoodrich

foxgoodrich

Posted
Posted

EB, it’s odd that we aren’t sweating this cruise out with you since we have done an annual Aug cruise every year since 2004. We have an Aug anniversary and DH’s birthday is in Aug, so it’s been a celebration cruise for us each year since 2004. This year, we couldn’t get any dates to work for us due to some family/grandkid activities that required our presence.

 

In all those Aug cruises, we only encountered a hurricane once - Hurricane Isaac in 2012. We were on the way (driving) to Ft Lauderdale on Saturday, the day before our cruise. It was a beautiful, sunny, Florida day as we drove south. About 2 hours out of FLL, our cell phones went crazy and the Hurricane Cruise began.

 

Isaac was off the coast of Florida. The forecast looked like it would hit the Miami/FLL area, but it was a tricky storm and it kept changing. Port Everglades decided, based on the forecast, to close on Saturday at 6pm until Tuesday morning at 5am. So the recorded messages on our phones were giving us this information.

 

We checked into our hotel (1 night pre-cruise reserved) and learned there was no option to stay longer - they were booked. We met up with another couple from our roll call who had flown in at the same hotel, and the 4 of us hung out until Tuesday when we finally boarded Allure.

 

Royal took care of us quite well. In fact, DH and I concluded, after putting a pencil to it, that we had actually made a $250 profit from the compensation. First, they sent us and the other couple to Embassy Suites for 2 nights. It was a direct bill to RC, so we paid nothing other than the daily charge for parking. (We were advised by a Royal customer care person to save our receipt and submit it for reimbursement.) We were told to keep meal receipts since Royal would reimburse up to $100 per person per day. (Embassy Suites has a fine big breakfast and an evening happy hour with drinks and munchies. We didn’t come close to spending that, even though we went out for an expen$ive crab dinner one night.)

 

Compensation on the ship depended on cabin type. We had a balcony, so we were given a $650 OBC and they mailed us a Future Cruise Certificate for 50% of what we’d paid for our balcony. They reimbursed all our meals from Sun-Tues & our parking at Embassy Suites.

The irony was…Port Everglades jumped the gun when they closed the port. Isaac did not hit Florida, but rather veered off around Haiti and followed the gulf to the west. FLL and Miami had some heavy rain and wind. (We live in Oklahoma so we know all about wind.) The weather people in FLL were jumping up and down in their excitement, warning people about the terrible wind gusts up to 35-40mph. (In OKC we call that a fairly decent hair day. We did note one coconut and some palm fronds down in front of our hotel, though.)

 

Anyway, our hurricane cruise turned out to be a whole lot of fun. By the time we finally embarked on Tuesday, we had been advised of the compensation, and everyone was pretty upbeat. Some people had cancelled, so the ship was not totally full and we had a wonderful 5 day cruise on Allure, despite the fact that our itinerary had changed drastically.

EB, I hope you’ll be treated as well as we were by Royal! We got the word early Sat afternoon, so that’s what will probably happen for you. The “not knowing” is what’s frustrating, but once you know what’s going to happen, things will be better for you. Good luck, try to keep a good attitude, and have a wonderful shorter cruise! And don’t take any flack about cruising in August. We got inconvenienced by a hurricane once in 13 years. We still will book in Aug because it’s a great month for us to be away and a celebration month for us

Judy

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

Posted
Posted
Am I the only one that sees that the street in the background appears to be under water?

 

I've seen dry streets that look like they are under water (out in the desert). If the water is 1/4" deep, it would be accurate to state that it is "under water". However, such a statement would also be misleading. From that angle you can not tell if the water is a 1/4" deep, four inches deep, or four feet deep.

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Cruiseathoning

Cruiseathoning

Posted
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We have a cruise booked in hurricane season. We bought insurance, so if there is a closed port and a storm warning, we will exercise our contractual rights, cancel the cruise, and go to Vegas. I can't worry about it, as much as I want to go, I am not God, so it is out of my control. I can only exercise the measures in my power to protect my family.

 

One of those measures is to not challenge a hurricane.

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

Posted
Posted
We have a cruise booked in hurricane season. We bought insurance, so if there is a closed port and a storm warning, we will exercise our contractual rights, cancel the cruise, and go to Vegas. I can't worry about it, as much as I want to go, I am not God, so it is out of my control. I can only exercise the measures in my power to protect my family.

 

One of those measures is to not challenge a hurricane.

 

You need to rethink this. If the cruise is not cancelled, your decision to cancel will not be covered. You are covered if the cruise line cancels the cruise. You are covered if you have to make alternate arrangements (at extra cost) to get to the cruise. You are covered if you can't get to the port and have to board the ship at the next stop (and the extra cost to get there). However, if the cruise goes forward and you don't have the carrier's permission to just cancel your trip, you might not like the letter you get back after you make your claim.

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EBFURR

EBFURR

Posted
Posted

Okay boys & girls, I just packed the last of my stuff (CPap and meds) and we are going to roll to the airport in a little while and takes our chances. That is, barring some sort of renouncement from RCI or Southwest in the interim that causes us to completely regroup again. In other words SNAFU. :D

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Coopdog08

Coopdog08

Posted
Posted
Okay boys & girls, I just packed the last of my stuff (CPap and meds) and we are going to roll to the airport in a little while and takes our chances. That is, barring some sort of renouncement from RCI or Southwest in the interim that causes us to completely regroup again. In other words SNAFU. :D

Good luck EB, keep us updated.

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stewpapa

stewpapa

Posted
Posted
It says Strand cam. Being from out of town, I was not aware that the strand was near the port.

 

I can show you lots of picture taken from places that are near other cruise ship port, and I doubt you would know what port it was. Would it have been that hard to just say this is a view of the Strand which is near the port?

 

 

 

Yes the Strand is one street over from the cruise terminal and the flooded street you see is the only way to get to the cruise terminal. The port is closed so I don't get what the confusion is. There will be no ship docking tomorrow.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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OSUZorba

OSUZorba

Posted
Posted
Is it going to YES?

 

No one said Liberty was going to New Orleans. There is speculation that it could go to New Orleans.

 

It'd benefit you to read the chain of replies before responding to it. The poster had responded to my post about Liberty having extra provisions onboard with asking why it was going to NO. To which I responded that it was not going to NO. So the person I responded to thought it was going to NO.

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BarryH

BarryH

Posted
Posted
This thread is getting extremely tedious....you all have a really good day today, O.K. And God bless you all

 

Two groups of people here go to the front of the line - those on ships trying to get off and those trying to get on. Next up are people in Houston and Galveston sharing real time information and their previous storm experience there.

 

The rest here are the equivalent of rubber neckers offering opinion based on second hand information.

 

The latter group's constant insistence their assessment is correct is what's tedious.

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CRUISEFAN0001

CRUISEFAN0001

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Posted
Again, there are less ships in the Caribbean in the summer because they are in Alaska and Europe, where there is higher demand. Cruise lines make their schedules according to where people want to go, not based on a small chance of a hurricane (admittedly that small chance is higher in hurricane season than not...BUT, it is still a SMALL chance!!)

LOL....we know you can't possibly be serious. :rolleyes:

 

The cost of any hurricane that impacts any Caribbean port could wipe out their revenue for months (obviously Florida ports would be a worse case scenario)...so yes...they do move them primarily for reducing risk and potential lost revenue. It doesn't take more than one major storm to disrupt things - one bad storm in Atlanta last year cost Delta 4 months of revenue...the cruise industry has a similar situation.

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Milwaukee Eight

Milwaukee Eight

Posted
Posted
I'm not afraid o' no hurricanes. We sail in September frequently, have only had the one time affect us negatively and as mentioned before, made the cruise and had a blast. That hurricane was Ike, which caused us consternation with our flights into the Cape to catch Mariner....but we just did a little creative thinking and left a day early. No problem.

 

The Galveston area looks like they may miss most of this except rain. RCCL is going to be looking good if the port opens tomorrow and Liberty comes in, even if late.

 

They predicted all sorts of Chaos here in San Antonio area and so far we have 1/2 inch of rain in the gauge and a few gusts.:o

 

Still very probable. The issue is flights into Houston.

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